Exciting tips for exciting people

A couple weeks ago, Sun Day Advertising Representative Kurt Kuehnert and I sat on a panel of local media members at an event for non-profit organizations to ask questions on how to better communicate with media outlets in hopes of gaining more exposure.

Given the event’s success, I thought it might be beneficial to address some of the topics with our readers in hopes to provide you with a better understanding of how we choose our editorial content, therefore allowing you increase your chances of having your material published in the Sun Day. I’ll also share some submission tips that might be helpful, as well.

Before I begin, I would like to add that we understand your submissions and the messages within them are important to you and many times to the public, and were it up to me, I’d run just about every submission that comes our way. Now, you may say, “But, Chris, you own the Sun Day, so it is up to you.” But, unfortunately, it’s not. And it’s not up to Sun Day Assistant Editor Kelsey O’Kelley, either. It is, however, up to how much space editorial space our advertising allows.

The Sun Day is a free publication and our only revenue comes from advertisers. And in every ad-supported newspaper in the country, ad content dictates how big an edition will be. It’s really that simple. If our ad base fills 24 pages, then that edition is 24 pages. If it only fills 12, it’s 12. Editorial content never dictates page count. If it did, the Sun Day wouldn’t have been in business very long.

There’s that old New York Times motto that comes to mind: All the news that’s fit to print. This motto actually has a double meaning. It’s talking first about offering quality content but it also literally means all the news that’s able to be physically fit into an edition. That’s what we do. We run everything that we can fit to print.

Long story short, we face space constraints.

Also, nothing is guaranteed to run. By nothing, I really mean nothing. Not even assigned stories or columns. In a year’s time, there are dozens of stories that were assigned that we either held over or never ran because we couldn’t find the room to do so. And, although not so much, we’ve not run columns due to space constraints for that edition.

So let’s start with how we prioritize submissions and what takes precedence (this list does not include assigned stories or columns).

— Dated Sun City resident/club/interest group/neighborhood submissions
— General Sun City resident/club/interest group/ neighborhood submissions
— Dated local submissions
— General local submissions
— Hang Your Hat (or letters to the editor)

As for the submission themselves. Although we don’t always respond to confirm receipt of the submission, all submissions are read and most all are filed for possible insertion into the paper.

When submitting, it’s best to send submissions to our general editorial inbox mycommunity@mysundaynews.com

Professional press releases are not required. A standard email is perfectly acceptable, but please write the submission ready for insertion.

Keeping in mind our space constraints, please keep submissions brief as possible. And please remember that we do reserve the right to edit at our discretion.

Handwritten submissions. This is a tough one. Generally speaking, we will pass on a handwritten submission because it is either illegible or we don’t have the time to transcribe. However, we understand that there are still many residents that don’t have a computer, so if that’s the only way you can submit, please do so, and we will do our best to give it our attention.

Lastly, be excited about what you’re submitting. When you’re excited to share a submission with us, we’re excited, and if we’re excited, our readers get excited. Excitement is a catching thing. And that’s one thing the Sun Day has always strived to do during its eight years in operation: excite people, which isn’t a big problem in the Sun City community because you’re all exciting. If you weren’t, the Sun Day would not be nearly so popular as it is.

On that note, I’d like to add that this edition marks our eighth anniversary, and more than anything, I want to thank you for making the Sun Day exciting because it’s your stories that make the Sun Day what it is. An exciting newspaper!

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